I tried to use voodoo to win a TV show, and in some ways it worked

perspective I tried to use voodoo to win Race Around The World, and in some ways it worked Thu 16 Jul 2026 at 4:30am Six Australian filmmakers are travelling the world in search of a story, each tasked with making a weekly short film for ABC iview's Race Around The World. This is contestant Mikaela Zuiderduyn's experience from her week six travels in Louisiana, USA. Halfway through the Race Around The World competition, I was sitting second last on the leaderboard. So, I decided to cheat. Not with extra money or some legitimate skew of the rules, but with magic. Did I believe in magic? No. Do I now? Also no. Maybe. I'm not too sure. By the time I arrived in New Orleans, I'd spent weeks moving at the relentless pace of the competition. Every week meant a new country, a new documentary, a new deadline and a new challenge. Finish one film, jump on a plane, start thinking about the next and don't look back. The jet lag, the judges' feedback, the surprise countries, the new people and the lack of sleep … it never gets easier because as soon as you 'find your stride', your routine gets uplifted and transported 12 hours across the globe to some new place, with new people, probably a new language and a new project to start and finish. You don't really stop, and you certainly can't hang in the past. You have to just keep moving. After already travelling to Alaska, South Korea, Morocco, Brazil and Japan, New Orleans felt so different from everywhere I'd been. The air was thick and humid. Music drifted out of bars before lunchtime. People sat on porches talking for hours. Entire conversations seemed to move at half the speed of the competition. Race Around The World thrives on urgency, but New Orleans? That city rewards hanging around. Barely over the halfway point, I was feeling creatively and energetically burnt out. So, naturally, I decided to take the easy way; I would make a documentary about winning with voodoo magic. Within a few days I'd interviewed tarot readers, clairvoyants, mediums and academics specialising in witchcraft. The idea felt simple: improve the judges' scores of my films with the dark arts. Trying not to offend any spirits, deities or mysterious forces that may or may not have been listening, I avoided asking the obvious question. Instead of "Will I win?", I'd ask things like, "How does this competition end for me?" or "What am I meant to learn from this experience?" Looking back, I may have accidentally been asking much better questions. Nobody seemed interested in predicting my future. Instead, there was a resounding message that creepily began popping up continuously in all my readings. One medium warned me about overworking. Another's tea leaves told me to stop focusing so much on outcomes. The tarot cards reiterated that "you need sleep". But I wasn't looking for life advice; I wanted leaderboard advice. A local practitioner gifted me a strength stone. I accepted it, then immediately slipped it into my camera bag, because throwing it away felt like a bad idea. Maybe I was beginning to believe? Maybe I was a little too worried to believe otherwise? If I didn't believe in their future prediction, that just left me with the uncertainty, and I certainly didn't need more of that. Meanwhile, New Orleans kept slowing me down. One evening I returned to a shop I'd filmed at the day before to ask a quick follow-up question. It should have taken five minutes. Instead, one conversation turned into another, bringing a co-worker in, then another friend, and so it went. Before I knew it, five of us were standing around the counter, chatting about work, hobbies, food, politics, language, culture and life. An hour and a half passed. None of us noticed the time we had filled. Another night, I wandered into a jazz bar on Frenchmen Street by myself. I didn't know the songs. I didn't know anyone there. I had no story to chase and nothing to film. So I just sat and listened. For hours. And these moments ended up proving the psychics right. For weeks, I'd been focused on getting to the next place, making the next film and thinking about the next result. But New Orleans was the first place that made me stop long enough to enjoy where I already was. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The witches told me to slow down, breathe, chill out, or something bad would happen. Maybe I heard it and subconsciously was trying to mend that seeded future by taking these moments to breathe and regroup. The psychics never told me whether I'd win. They asked me if I really needed to know. They prodded, asking if the result was the focus and silently suggested, or reminded me, that the journey would gift me far more than a win ever could. The learning of how to deal with the chaos, and stay grounded during times of massive upheaval and uproot. Corny, right? But I left New Orleans with something unexpectedly helpful. They didn't give me an answer about the future, rather, they reminded me to enjoy the journey while I was actually living it. And a strength stone that is still sitting in my camera bag. Loading...Mikaela Zuiderduyn is a contestant on ABC iview's Race Around The World. Stream Race Around The World on ABC iview, or watch Sundays at 7.30pm on ABC TV. [Image text:] RESTE IN COUR